3 charged in masked stick-up in Crestwood

A teenager and two men were charged with robbing two businesses at gunpoint at a popular strip mall in south suburban Crestwood last weekend.

While police arrested one of the three suspects the same night as the Nov. 13 robberies, Crestwood investigators worked for days with Cook County sheriff's gang officers to track down the other two.

Crestwood police first spotted the three masked bandits as they stepped outside the Walgreens near the intersection of 135th Street and Cicero Avenue just before 9 p.m., authorities said in a news release.

The trio robbed the Walgreens after first robbing an adjacent Little Caesar's Pizza, authorities said. Police pursued all three suspects on foot until they split up to evade pursuing officers.

One of the robbers, Anthony Albritton Jr., 23, of Robbins, was arrested after he tossed his handgun to the ground, police said.

The other two escaped despite the officers getting help from several neighboring police agencies, a police helicopter and K-9 officers. But Crestwood police detectives spent the next few days poring over clues alongside officers from the sheriff's south suburban police gang task force.

Their work paid off after clues led police to Eric Goudeau, 23, of Robbins and the teen who lives in Park Forest, officials said. All three suspects confessed to their involvement and were each charged with multiple counts of armed robbery, police said.

The teen was also charged as an adult, but police didn't release his name.

In 2009, Albritton and Goudeau were each charged with a string of burglaries in Crestwood. Albritton pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay restitution, while the case against Goudeau was dropped, according to police and court records.

This latest charge led prosecutors to file a petition against Albritton, claiming that he violated the terms of his probation, court records show.